Title: The Gift of Gifts
Fandom: Merrily We Roll Along
Rating: PG
Length: 1000
Content notes: no warnings apply
Author notes: Part of my Started Out Like A Song series; this one is for ginbitch, who originally requested Frank-Charley angst. The title comes from Mary's question to Frank: "How does anybody compose music, though? To me that is the gift of gifts."
Summary: Where is he now, the young man who said If I didn’t have music I’d die?




Where is he now, the young man who said If I didn’t have music I’d die? Frank hasn’t written a note for years. Not since the end of things with Charley.

Not since before that. That was why it ended.

Charley on national television, sneering at what Frank had become, calling him Franklin Shepard Inc. Saying all he cared about any more was money, that he’d thrown away his best gift, betrayed their friendship. The unforgivable sin: becoming a successful Hollywood producer rather than spending all his time writing musicals. Charley didn’t understand the pressure Frank was under: Beth bleeding him dry with the alimony payments, Frankie’s school fees, the dread of crashing back into poverty again if the next show was a flop.

Yeah, but you were happy then, remember? You and Charley and Mary, none of you with two cents to rub together. Up on the roof in the early hours of the morning watching the Sputnik cross the sky and believing that anything was possible. Worlds to change and worlds to win.

Growing up meant leaving all that behind. Shrugging off the naïve idealism along with the frayed and shabby dressing-gown he’d worn up on the roof.

He’d yelled at Gussie when she put that old robe out with the trash last year, and got a coolly amused Darling, what’s got into you? in return. Their marriage was coming apart even then. The affair with Meg Kincade was just the last straw.

His mind shies away from the thought of Meg as he last saw her, screaming after Gussie threw the iodine in her face. The papers had been full of it: STARRY-EYED MEG BLINDED BY BROADWAY LEGEND. He didn’t read the stories, but he couldn’t avoid the headlines.

And all the letters: letters from Meg’s lawyer, threatening prosecution, demanding compensation. Letters from Gussie’s lawyer about the divorce.

When did his life become this?

Then one day in the post there’s another letter. New York postmark, typed address. Inside, a ticket for the opening night of a show at Playwrights Workshop: Good and Crazy People, a new musical, book and lyrics by Charles Kringas, music by Oliver Guy.

Something twists in Frank’s stomach at the sight of Charley’s name with another composer. Who the fuck is Oliver Guy? Some talentless nobody, probably; Frank’s certainly never heard of him. The show’s bound to be a flop. It’s pathetic, really, Charley still wanting to write musicals. Why can’t he stay home and polish his fucking Pulitzer prize?

There’s a note in with the ticket, Charley’s familiar handwriting. Frank rubs the back of his hand across his eyes and reads:

“I’m told we open Saturday.” It would be great to see you there. Love, Charley.

He’s got some nerve even asking, after what he did. Frank had told him then, you’re dead to me.

His own words to Mary up on the roof echo in his head: If I didn’t have music, I’d die.

One dead man going to another dead man’s show. Hell, why not? It’s not like there’s anything to keep him here in LA.




Charley’s new composer is a tall skinny kid who goes green when Charley introduces him, and stammers about what an honor it is to meet Frank, how he’s admired his music since childhood.

“That long?” Mary says, and Oliver Guy grins weakly.

Mary Flynn. The last person Frank expected to see at Charley’s opening night, after himself. Looking a hell of a lot better than the last time he saw her, and apparently sober. She seems to know this interloper awfully well.

“You’re not going to throw up again, are you?” she asks the kid.

“Can’t be anything left,” Charley says. “His pre-show nerves are legendary.”

“Worse with Frank there,” Mary says. “I didn’t think you’d come.”

“I’m glad you did,” Charley says, before Frank can say anything.

“It was good,” Frank says, and tries not to sound grudging. He has to say it, because it’s true, and because the kid is standing there looking the way he used to look, waiting for someone to say what Frank says next: “I liked your music.”

“Thank you,” Oliver Guy gasps. “Excuse me.”

He bolts through the swinging doors under the sign for the restrooms.

“Looks like you were wrong, Charley,” Mary says.

Charley doesn’t say anything. He’s looking at Frank like he doesn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Frank’s not sure which he wants to do himself. Maybe it’s both.

“I still have your plays,” he says, and sees Charley wince. Of all the things to blurt out.

He’d read them again on the plane to New York, and they still take his breath away. The talent that Charley had, even then. And what he’s become. The show was better than good. It’s the show they could have written together, if Frank had stayed.

“Frank,” Charley says, and he doesn’t say any more.

Mary makes an exasperated noise and waves her arms to bring the three of them together in a hug. It’s awkward and stiff, but it’s also overwhelming, the familiar smell of her perfume, the familiar solid warmth of Charley. Frank’s throat is tight from longing and the years of loss.

“Here’s to us,” Mary says. He can feel that she’s crying.

“Who’s like us?” Charley says.

Frank tightens his grasp and pulls his old friends closer, as if he’ll never let them go. “Damn few.”



It’s late when he gets back to the hotel, but he’s still on Pacific time and not ready to sleep. He sits staring out of the window at the lights of Manhattan far below, with the evening’s sounds, words and music, running through his brain. Eventually he starts to hear a tune that isn’t any of the songs from tonight, a tune he can’t remember hearing before. It doesn’t have words, or not yet. He scribbles it down on a sheet of the hotel notepaper, and falls asleep with it still playing in his head.